


the only thing that I know how to find is another vice

by FrenchTwistResistance



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-09-26 22:53:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20397472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchTwistResistance/pseuds/FrenchTwistResistance
Summary: Zelda listens to country-western music sometimes, too. But she doesn’t like it.





	1. Chapter 1

Zelda pours another two fingers of bourbon over half-melted ice, lights another cigarette. She’s tired of changing out vinyls, switches on am radio instead. It sounds like it’s being broadcast from two counties away through a vacuum tube, but that’s how classic country should sound anyway.

This isn’t her preferred station and not where she’d left the dial. By this time of night, she’s usually up for the guy who talks about aliens and covert CIA spy planes and unethical genetic experiments—the am radio version of a hack newspaper. 

But she hasn’t been home so much lately, and Hilda’s been the main listener to their covered-patio cabinet stereo. 

So here she is not drunk enough to sing along but just drunk enough not to want to dick with the frequency for fear of not landing on anything real. Analog is finicky, and she doesn’t have the emotional capacity for finessing it tonight. And the spell for changing it is unconscionably difficult. She’s stuck.

“‘When I was young, my heart was young then, too. And anything that it would tell me that’s the thing that I would do,’” Anne Murray sings through the steel wool filter of am radio, murky and yet somehow piercing.

Zelda settles back into a wicker chair, takes a drink, takes a drag.

She’s long abandoned the advanced hexing exams she’d been grading and the sermon she’d been half-heartedly editing and is now completely devoted to perusing the glossy pages of this unsolicited catalogue. Or maybe Hilda had ordered it. There are plenty of union suits and homemade soaps, but there’s also weird real estate and euphemistically branded but quite obviously BDSM accoutrements. She can’t figure whether Hilda’s been complicit in this or not.

“‘The one I love forever is untrue, and if I could you know that I would fly away with you,’” Anne Murray sings, and Zelda pauses her perusal to listen. 

Fuck Anne Murray, she thinks, with all her maudlin romantic idiocy—catchy though. The only Canadian she trusts is Shania Twain. 

But after a commercial about combine maintenance and then another about mesothelioma litigation and another about local job searches, Shania Twain is singing,

“‘No one needs to know right now.’”

Zelda scoffs and stands. Sometimes she hates magic. It’s easier to accidentally will a late-night DJ into playing something slightly less despicable than it is to change an analog am radio dial. Ridiculous. No wonder witches are a dying breed.

She deposits more ice cubes into her glass, more liquor to keep the ice company.

“‘I’m not dreamin’ or stupid—’” One thing she is able to do very easily is shut the whole contraption down. And so she does, and she’s left listening to crickets.

Maybe no Canadian can know her sorrow. Maybe she’s being stupid and ought to go to bed.

But she doesn’t go to bed. She abandons the catalogue, deposits it on the polyester cushion next to her.

She lays out a solitaire hand on the glass-top patio table, ashes her cigarette onto the concrete, listens to the quiet night.

She’s been High Priestess for three months. And Lilith has yet to acknowledge her in any way. She tries not to take it personally.

It was easy not to take Blackwood’s actions personally. That was all misogyny and fantasy. The regular stuff that might occur if a man had absolute power. Horrible, but to be expected. Not to say she’s not absolutely traumatized, just that her trauma could’ve been bet on. She wakes up in a cold sweat more often than not imagining she’s in that dress or lingerie or nothing at all, being pawed at against her will. She feels angry and upset and dirty and used and defiled and less than. It’s all so ugly, but it’s not anything outside the realm of a man exerting total control. It’s plenty to get riled up about, plenty to have an anxiety attack about, but overall it’s completely unoriginal.

But now that’s she’s in charge and trying to piece together something out of ruins, trying to forget, trying to learn.

It’d be helpful if someone helped.

Lilith, it seems, can’t be bothered. She’s got her own shit to deal with in Hell. Her tacit message is, “And get fucked for trying to organize a religion around me.” But Zelda’s got to start somewhere. She’s too rigid to scrap the whole system, but she secretly fears that may be the best option. It’s one of myriad things she mulls over alone. She might approach Hilda about it. But.

Hilda seems to be preoccupied. Hilda doesn’t seem to care about this new church, just as she had not cared about the old church. At least Hilda is consistent in her heresy. Zelda doesn’t know whether this is a defense mechanism or honest apathy, honest rebellion. She ought to ask. It’s a conversation that’s too frightening and too real to initiate.

Zelda places a nine of clubs on a ten of diamonds and takes a drink. She ought to just go to bed, but her mind isn’t blank enough for that yet. If she’s not at least half toasted she won’t sleep. And if she’s not fully toasted, she’ll wake up at 5am to the same thoughts she’d think if she went to bed right now.

Zelda’s in the wicker loveseat on the covered patio, strategizing whether she should put the four of hearts on the five of spades or on top of the three of hearts in the attic.

“You’re up late,” Hilda’s voice says.

Zelda thinks she’s imagined it; she hadn’t heard any doors or footsteps. She ultimately decides on giving the four to the five and then places the jack of clubs on the queen of hearts.

But Hilda is next to her on the loveseat. Hilda’s thigh against hers is solid, palpable. She looks over, and Hilda has the catalogue in her lap and is yawning. Zelda affects haughtiness, annoyance, although she’s relieved to have the company.

“I’ve got a reason,” Zelda says. “Do you?”

“No reason at all,” Hilda says.

Hilda reaches over and clicks on the radio. It’s Conway Twitty now, hello darlin’ing them through a pvc pipe. Hilda places the ten of diamonds on the jack of clubs. And then she rests her head on Zelda’s shoulder, sighs. Zelda almost relaxes but then,

“Did you order this catalogue?” Zelda says. She flaps the pages in front of them both.

“No,” Hilda says, fingers tracing the image of a thousand-piece grandfather clock puzzle. “But I might have if given the chance.”

Zelda stiffens and huffs, tosses the catalogue onto her solitaire spread.

“What’s kept you up so late?” Zelda says.

Hilda blinks up at her.

“Did you forget accidentally or willfully that I was chaperoning a dance at Baxter High?”

Zelda focuses her eyes in the dim light, looks Hilda up and down, takes in the conservative black cocktail dress. It’s not quite conservative enough not to entice mortal teenagers, in her opinion. But Hilda’s never been great at perceiving how her body affects people. Zelda doesn’t hold that against her but does wish Hilda would ever believe her when she says she’s a huntress.

“Hmm. Both,” Zelda says. She goes to take a drink, but her glass is empty. “I need a fresh drink. Would you like one? While I’m at it?”

Hilda takes off her heels, pushes her skirt up to begin removing her pantyhose, says off-handedly,

“Sure.” Zelda allows herself to watch for another few seconds. She doesn’t analyze why this is a special allowance, nor does she analyze why she feels compelled to look in the first place. She pretends it’s some protective instinct, making sure Hilda’s safe and comfortable. She doesn’t analyze, and she returns with two full glasses.

Hilda takes a drink and visibly tries not to cough.

“Rather stiff, sister,” Hilda says.

“What did you think you were getting into when you agreed to drink with me?” Zelda says as she lights a cigarette.

“Nothing less. Just a statement.” Hilda locks eyes with her, knocks back half the glass without even a hint of a wince. She places her drink on the table and again places her head on Zelda’s shoulder. “You said you had a reason. So. Why are you up so late, Zelds?”

Zelda doesn’t mean to reveal the truth. She means to obfuscate at least a little. But damn it all, Hilda’s radio station is playing, and it’s, “‘I’ve got a thinkin’ problem. She’s always on my mind.’” And she says,

“If I’m not up too late I’m up too early.”

“The early bird gets the worm,” Hilda says.

“But who’s the worm in this scenario?” Zelda says.

“The worm is a metaphor. For anything you want.” Hilda sits up, chugs the rest of her drink. Zelda laughs.

“I doubt it.” Zelda stands. “I fucking doubt it.” She begins pacing, ashing her cigarette haphazardly, sloshing her drink. “I’m not sure I’ve ever once in my long, long life gotten what I wanted, no matter how early I’ve stumbled angrily out of bed.”

She watches Hilda swallow and nervously rearrange herself.

“I— I know. And I’m sorry—” Hilda begins.

“It’s not your fault. It’s my own. Everything’s my fault—” Zelda truncates her own self-loathing rant by downing the rest of her drink.

Hank Williams, Jr. is singing something indistinct behind her actions, and she throws her glass to the concrete in protest. He may have loved some ladies. He may have loved Jim Beam. But no more than she has. He’s an imbecile, and she’s embarrassed that she should feel a connection to him. She’s embarrassed that her sister should like this—the music but also her. 

The tumbler shatters, dim light glinting off its wet planes. They both watch it. They both flinch.

“I’ll clean it up in the morning,” Zelda says.

“But there’s plenty you could clean up tonight,” Hilda says.

Hilda’s eyes are glistening. They’re no longer scared, but they’re searching, penetrating. Hilda stands. She very deliberately looks into Zelda’s eyes and then throws her own tumbler onto the concrete. They continue looking at each other instead of watching the shards leap and dance and become prisms.

“Why did you do that?” Zelda says.

“We need to talk,” Hilda says.

Zelda brushes past her into the house proper. She grabs the decanter of whiskey and starts up the stairs: she’s not drunk enough to sleep peacefully, but she’s too drunk for this conversation.

She’s hanging her dress on a wooden hanger, and Hilda is saying,

“I know why you’re running.”

Zelda stands there in her silk full slip. She says,

“You think you know a lot of things.”

Hilda places a trembling hand on Zelda’s hip. She says,

“I haven’t said a lot since you’ve been on your fool’s errand.”

Their faces are so close to each other. Hilda’s other hand is on Zelda’s shoulder now. Zelda closes her eyes and simply feels. Hilda continues:

“But I do have a lot to say. If you’d like to listen.”

“I can’t listen just now,” Zelda says. “Not with you so close to me like this.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Thought you could use—a hug.” Hilda clears her throat, looks anywhere but Zelda’s eyes. “Sorry,” Hilda says. She takes a few steps backward, distractedly and ineptly begins to attempt to unzip her dress. Zelda collects herself expressly to watch this travesty. Hilda’s flushed and floundering. There’s no way that had been the precursor to a simple hug. Zelda takes a little comfort in Hilda’s sudden discomfort and back peddling, says,

“Turn around.” Hilda pauses and blinks and then does.

Zelda’s fingers are cool on Hilda’s warm skin. Zelda involuntarily shudders, unzips more quickly than is advisable. The zipper sticks a few inches from its terminus, just there at Hilda’s lower back, just there at the waistband of generic black cotton underwear. Just there at goosebumps.

They both hear and feel the hitch. Hilda makes to shimmy the rest of the way out, but Zelda’s hands still her hips and then work the zipper up and down a few times, gently, slowly, until the thing capitulates and zips completely down. She steps away so Hilda can step out.

Zelda doesn’t analyze. She just watches—watches Hilda hang the dress, watches Hilda bend to pull out a wardrobe drawer and retrieve a nightgown, watches her bang it closed again with her hip, watches her walk to the bathroom.

“Fuck and a half,” Zelda groans as she changes into her own nightgown.

Hilda’s muted voice from the bathroom:

“You say something to me, Zelds?”

“No.”

Zelda takes two quick swigs from the decanter and then enters the bathroom to brush her teeth. They stand next to each other at the double sinks. Hilda spits first, says,

“I still want to talk.”

Zelda spits prematurely, says, 

“Good for you.”

She can usually be around Hilda. Often even likes it, finds it pleasant and warm. But after she’s skimmed her fingers along her smooth back, seen her underwear, seen her flustered by her own actions and the reactions they’d caused. She can’t.

She’s gripping the decanter forcefully by the neck, about to exit. Hilda’s hand is on her forearm, and she’s saying,

“We need to talk. But we don’t have to tonight.” Zelda turns slightly to look at her. Hilda’s biting her lip.

“Do you have an alternative suggestion?”

She feels Hilda analyzing her.

“You’re in no state to help me finish the puzzle I’ve been working on. A little tv? True crime documentary?”

“Absolutely not,” Zelda says. She proceeds out the door. She doesn’t have a concrete plan of where she might be headed. She doesn’t want to look at Hilda’s haphazardly abandoned pantyhose or the glass mess they’ve made, so the back porch is out. Hilda doesn’t let her smoke in the arboretum. The kitchen’s lights are too bright. The stuffy, dusty music room seems her best option.

She’s just pulled out some yellowed sheet music from inside the piano bench when Hilda’s there at the threshold.

“Bless it, Hilda! Can’t I be away from you for five minutes?” Zelda says.

“You’ve been away from me for months.”

Hilda hasn’t changed into the nightgown she’d pulled blindly out of her chest of drawers. She’s been following Zelda around the house in her strapless bra and utilitarian panties. Zelda chances just a half a perusal of her body, doesn’t analyze the way she’s standing or the way her own body responds to this dishabille.

Zelda swallows, places some waltz into the music rack.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Zelda says. She adjusts her nightgown and sits primly on the piano bench, stretches her fingers, and finally looks at what she’s chosen. The song is trash. But if she starts playing soon, she won’t have to listen to her sister.

She plays four bars and then Hilda starts singing along. She’s shot herself in the foot.

“I’ll always remember the song they were playing—” Hilda sings softly. Fucking Anne Murray. Zelda slams the fall down. Hilda lurches at the sound of it. Zelda perches even more rigidly on the bench.

Hilda shifts her weight, says,

“If you really didn’t know what I meant, you wouldn’t be so upset.”

“I thought you said we didn’t have to talk tonight,” Zelda says.

“And I meant it. But you keep bringing it up.”

“Inadvertently,” Zelda says.

“Oh horseshit,” Hilda says as she flops onto the davenport. One arm is above her head and the other is languidly on her torso. Her legs are crossed at the ankle and propped on the arm of the divan. Her golden curls are spread carelessly on a throw pillow.

Zelda takes in Hilda’s prone form. She scans and absorbs and appreciates, but she doesn’t analyze.

“You want to talk even more than I do, but you don’t want to admit it,” Hilda continues.

Zelda sits on the edge of the davenport, barely letting herself touch Hilda’s mostly nude body.

“You’re mistaken,” Zelda says. Hilda’s eyes are closed, but her hand finds Zelda’s.

“Not as mistaken as you’d prefer me to be.” 

Hilda’s eyes shoot open, and they’re looking at each other.

“We live together. We run a business together. We share a bedroom. We’re together all the time—” Zelda begins. Hilda squeezes her hand, says,

“And yet we’re not. You don’t trust me.”

Zelda huffs. Hilda says,

“Why won’t you let me love you?”

Zelda feels her body against Hilda’s body. Zelda sees the reflection of her eyes in Hilda’s eyes. Hilda very obviously loves her and wants her. Zelda doesn’t know what to do with that. This nice, mutual love is foreign. She doesn’t know what to do with a love that cares about her well-being. She can understand sadism, masochism, hurt. But she can’t understand someone who looks at her body and likes it as it is rather than how it could be after it’s been broken.

“I have a sermon to—“ Zelda decides on.

“Oh horseshit,” Hilda says again. “Lilith doesn’t care. And neither do any of us. We all believe in you. Not her.”

Zelda stands in protest, smooths out her nightgown. But Hilda’s still talking:

“Lilith has never been one for diatribes and rituals. We endure them for you. Because you believe in them.”

“You’re speaking for yourself. You’re a reprobate,” Zelda says. She reaches for the decanter.

“Maybe,” Hilda says. “But even a reprobate can be faithful. If the fidelity means something.”

“Don’t,” Zelda says as she takes a long drink from the decanter. The whiskey burns, and she’s a little dizzy. “Don’t. If you don’t mean it, don't.”

“And if I do mean it?” Hilda says.

“Still. Don’t.”

“Come here,” Hilda says. Zelda doesn’t think, doesn’t analyze. She just does. Hilda laces their fingers together. “We don’t have to talk tonight. You know very well what I want to say.”

“Yes,” Zelda says.

“And you know very well—” Hilda looks toward the corner. She fidgets but then manages, “—you very well know what I want to say and what I don’t want to say.”

Zelda flexes her fingers, looks down at Hilda.

“It’s late,” Zelda says.

Hilda guides her by their interlaced hands. Her other hand finds Zelda’s nape. And Hilda’s grasping and pulling and finally. Finally Zelda is flush on top of her. Hilda cranes her neck and kisses her, glides her tongue into Zelda’s mouth. They pant together. And Zelda says,

“This isn’t what you want.”

Hilda bites at Zelda’s lower lip, pulls at Zelda’s scalp. Hilda’s thigh thrusts up to Zelda’s center. And then Hilda takes Zelda’s hand, directs it toward her own wetness. Fingers on fingers, down and down, hot and close and moist.

“And what do I want, then?” Hilda pants, encouraging Zelda’s hand deeper, faster.

Zelda moans, buries her face in Hilda’s neck.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recently read a book about 1890s NYC and needed somewhere to deposit the most fun information, so.

It’s before country-western music even existed. Before am radio. Plenty of entertainments flourish besides, but those two Hilda favorites are decades off yet when Zelda has set up shop as a saloon keeper in the Tenderloin in the mid 1890s.

It’s strategic as much as it is aesthetic or capitalistic. 

The police captain in charge of this precinct is a Tammany man—easily bought. He’s used to extracting a price and turning a blind eye, and if one is going to practice witchcraft and invite other witches to do the same corporately in such a public location, one must find a place where other salacious activities are tolerated. It’s either the rural woods or a corrupt city too busy to notice. And Zelda’s had plenty of the rural woods, requires a change of scenery. She’s a young witch still and restless.

She could’ve gone west, she supposes. The frontier isn’t called the frontier for nothing, after all. She’d read about how when Wyoming had been admitted to the union not too long ago that the whole territory had refused statehood unless women could keep their suffrage. Admirable, admittedly. But sparse, rugged landscapes had seemed too analogous to the rural woods for her current comfort. She had needed a different kind of stimulation than how to kill buffalo.

She’d heard that Hilda had gone west. She’d heard that Hilda was practicing midwifery out of some mud hut in the Arizona territory.

She had tried to pretend this rumor hadn’t affected her decision to adopt an opposite lifestyle and open a bar in New York City. But she’d always been better at looking a part than playing a part.

And so here Zelda is in the late 1890s, hastily glamoring her saloon into an approximation of a hotel so she can sell cut-rate booze on a Sunday in shaky compliance with the Raines law.

But of course the witches of Manhattan that she serves see her deception. They are by far her most lucrative regulars, and they are also by far the most snobbish. So she opts for some cut-rate carpentry, and her saloon is now a hotel structurally, technically, and officially.

Even the mortal plain-clothes policemen can’t complain: the sandwiches she serves at the new dining room to appease the drinks-allowed-with-a-meal rule are real and edible unlike so many others’ loophole sandwiches passed to three different customers or made with actual bricks; the new guest rooms are well-appointed if a little shoddy.

She’d really quite liked being a saloon keeper before all this puritanical reform nonsense that has forced her to be more of a con-man than a business owner.

But now that she’s had to jump through the loop of her ass to supply a beer or whiskey on a Sunday afternoon, she finds it tedious. And sleazy. Cheap rooms invite cheap affairs. She likes a good no-stings-attached roll in the hay as well as the next person, but all this back-room, hushed-voice, shopgirl-not-shopgirl, meet-you-in-a-Raines-law-created-room-little-better-than-a-closet stuff is tacky at best. And her skin crawls to be involved in it. She’s no madame. She’d’ve liked to have run an honest bar free of women selling themselves out of capitalistic necessity.

But she’s made her bed. She could’ve gone west. She hadn’t. She could’ve stayed home. She hadn’t. She could’ve gone to the continent. She hadn’t. She’s invested and will ride it out. Everything’s so cyclical with mortals, she comforts herself saying.

xxx

It’s late on a Wednesday evening and her regular bartender has called off so she’s pouring drinks herself. It’s August and so hot and wet. Stray ringlets of her hair at her temples are curling unprompted in the humidity. 

A drunk witch patron is saying,

“Yeah of course I went to the fair and had a peek. But have you heard The Voice?” His companion is a mortal, also drunk, and that guy’s eyebrows shoot up as he says,

“I’ve heard of him. But. How am I supposed to get excited to a fella?”

The witch laughs and hiccups, says,

“He’s got a girl with him now.”

They then ask for another round, but Zelda denies them. They totter off out her door. She suspects they will weave along the sidewalk until they either pass out, get arrested, or find a willing girl. Any disreputable way it’s sliced, it’s not her problem anymore.

But as she’s cleaning up, she ruminates on their conversation. It’s not the first time she’s heard about this Voice character. And she’s heard enough about him in drunken passing that she’s intrigued. Apparently, there are erotic recordings, blue as the day is long, available to the discerning reprobate in certain back alley black markets. It seems a strange enterprise. She can’t fathom the kind of person who might participate in such a recording or the kind of person who might demand such a supply. Her closest interaction with this sort of thing might be Hilda’s giddy but secretive reading of racy paperbacks. 

As intrigued as she is, Zelda doesn’t seek these recordings out. Until she does, rather accidentally. Or perhaps fortuitously.

One of the girls who frequents her “hotel” props herself against the brass railing of the bar very soon after those men had left.

“I swear! The Voice is stealing my business. Who wants to pay full price for full service when he can pay a fourth of the price for half service,” the girl laments, hunched over the bar.

Zelda nudges her so she can wipe the bar where she’s slumped, says deliberately off-handedly,

“I’d like to know more about your competition.”

xxx

The girl has recruited an older man—Zelda doesn’t ask questions about how they know each other or in what capacity—to help them procure and parse a recording. He wears an out-of-fashion suit and has an indeterminate accent. But his phonograph in his stuffy, ornate, middle-class parlor works perfectly.

There’s popping and buzzing and then a man who sounds very far away:

“What are you reading there?”

There is a loud, fuzzy pause and then a woman:

“Same old same old, pet.”

Zelda stiffens. That voice raises goosebumps. It’s Hilda’s voice, fuzzy and indistinct and noncommittal but still so very her sister.

“Read it aloud to me?” the man’s voice says.

“You can’t be serious,” Hilda’s voice says.

“As a grave. Please?”

“Well. Since you said ‘please.’” A giggle.

Zelda very literally clutches her pearls. And then Hilda’s voice is there again:

“‘The pirate’s sinister visage curled into a smile as he looked at her. She was his prize, and he could hardly wait to claim her.’”

Zelda wonders where Hilda finds these people. Or perhaps these people find Hilda. Either way she’s incensed. This grifter must have befriended her and tricked her into this. 

Zelda looks around at the red velvet arm chairs and polished oak busts and assumes he must’ve had someplace nice like this or Hilda never would’ve taken up with him. She wonders where an enterprising criminal might hide a wax cylinder to both record successfully and also remain clandestine. The technology is new and rather dodgy, so he’d have to be a clever thing to pull this off. 

Of course Hilda, ever trusting and optimistic, wouldn’t have been looking for secret implements. She would’ve just been being herself—her vice had always been fictional romance, after all—and this man would’ve seen that and taken advantage of her for capital gain. And perhaps personal gain, as well. One compliment, one kind word, and her sister melted. She knows from experience, had used that fact to her own advantage many times. Sure, Hilda is an empath, but she often chooses not to use that particular gift, preferring the romantic notion of seeing something in someone’s eyes or something, some idea that there is such a thing as a genuine connection. Zelda doesn’t understand her logic on it, but however much she doesn’t understand her sister, she still wants to protect her.

“‘The storm raged on the wine-dark sea, tossing the ship between aggressive waves. A different storm raged in the pirate’s wine-soaked eyes. A different storm parted her wine-colored lips,’” Hilda’s voice continues.

“I’ve heard enough,” Zelda says, pulling up the needle on the phonograph. “Where did you get this?”

The man adjusts his tie, clears his throat, says,

“I’m not sure that’s proper information to share with a lady.”

Zelda grabs his chin, looks into his eyes, says,

“In what universe might I be considered a lady? And even if I were, haven’t you already breached your staid, Victorian ethics by allowing me to listen to lewd recordings in your drawing room?”

Even under threat of physical violence, the man does not reveal his source.

xxx

Zelda’s sitting in a posh tea room on the upper west side. She’d decided on the meeting place. She waits for at least forty five minutes, drinking tea she doesn’t particularly enjoy, until Hilda enters.

Zelda had previously thought Hilda had been out west. Zelda had more recently thought Hilda had been duped by The Voice. Therefore, Zelda had thought Hilda would be, when they finally crossed paths again, in a stained pinafore or similar rough-hewn garments. She doesn’t let herself think about how she’d chosen the location in order to shame her sister according to these assumptions.

However, there is no shame to be had. Hilda is immaculate. She’s got a fashionable hat tastefully adorned with peacock plumes, an ornate lace shawl, a brocaded gown. She could be any politician’s wife. She could be any society woman at all. She sits across from Zelda, says,

“Sorry I’m late, sister.”

“You’re a very busy woman,” Zelda says acidly. She hadn’t meant to say that; it had slipped out. Hilda looks at her with narrowed eyes, says,

“We’re both very busy, indeed.”

Zelda pours her a cup of tea. They retain eye contact throughout.

“It seems you’ve expended quite a lot of resources to find me,” Hilda says. Surely Hilda can’t know about the Pinkerton detective and how expensive he’d been. “Do you have something especially important to say to me?”

The place is all cultured women being cultured together. The women passing on the street and looking in the window wish they were cultured women sharing culture with other women. Zelda scans the clientele, the onlookers. Finally Zelda says:

“There’s something you should know.”

“And what is that?” Hilda says.

Zelda lights a cigarette, recrosses her legs. She leans in, says furtively,

“Do you know anything about a person known as The Voice?”

Hilda laughs, says,

“So that's what this is about.”

Hilda thinly butters a roll and is rather more generous with the orange marmalade. Zelda watches Hilda’s mouth as she devours the roll she’d prepared.

“You know he’s used you?” Zelda says.

“Used me?” Hilda laughs. “Hardly. You know how I feel about having some kick-around money.”

So Hilda hadn’t been tricked, had been a willing participant in a certain kind of debauchery in order to acquire easy cash. Zelda doesn’t like it, but she must admit that it tracks. She processes this new revelation for another second.

“So you’re a pornographer now,” Zelda says.

“Those in glass brothels ought not throw stones,” Hilda says.

“I do not run a brothel!” Zelda says. The statement is a tad too loud, and a few ladies at other tables cast a few glances their way. She lowers her voice: “I don’t run a brothel.” 

“Ok, Zelds. I am acquainted with nuance. But not everyone is as open-minded as I am.”

Zelda counters,

“And just how open-minded are you?”

They both blink and look at each other.

Hilda licks the rest of the marmalade off her fingers, says,

“Is this your way of asking me up to one of your Raines suites?”

“I do not run a brothel.”

“Good thing, too, as I wasn’t going to offer to pay you.” Zelda rolls her eyes, says,

“Yes. I know how you feel about your kick-around money.”

They again regard each other. Perhaps Zelda had been wrong about her sister. Perhaps there’s no trust or optimism there at all, just capitalism and a pretty face and an even prettier voice. Good for her. Mortal bullshit is circular. Let Hilda have what she can until she can’t anymore.

Zelda throws a few coins onto the table, stands, says,

“I guess you know where to find me if you’re inclined that way ever.”

xxx

Zelda’s all but forgotten about the incident.

In the intervening months, the reformers have been voted out, and her “hotel”—no use fixing something that isn’t broken—is still lucrative. She’s halfway to closing the place down and finding something else interesting to do. She’s got the resources to be comfortably on the back end of it.

Her regular bartender has again called off tonight so she’s pouring drinks herself and lazily daydreaming about what venture she might try next.

She’s just sliding a whiskey toward an obviously plainclothes policemen on the prowl when she hears down the way:

“Gin is a lady’s drink, yeah?”

It’s Hilda’s voice.

Zelda turns her head, sees Hilda in all her finery talking to a man not worthy of her (what man might be worthy of her? None, probably). Zelda glides down the bar, is in front of the man saying,

“Scram, buddy.”

He does scram. And Hilda’s looking at her over the brass and mahogany of the bar.

“Thought I’d have to work a little harder to find you,” Hilda says. Zelda laughs, says,

“I’m notoriously easy.”

“Still not offering to pay you.”

“Much easier than that,” Zelda says.

xxx

Zelda’s hands are pressing Hilda’s shoulders against a tackily papered wall. She should’ve insisted on a fleur de lis pattern or at least golden vertical stripes. But she’d let the contractors do whatever they felt appropriate, which had resulted in these awful blue flowers.

Hilda does not seem to mind.

Hilda is pinned, and her hips are canting, her tongue searching and straining in Zelda’s mouth. She is moaning. They both are, in fact.

Zelda gives her a final push and then retreats. They make eye contact as Zelda begins removing her own clothing, says,

“Surely you didn’t think you could get out of this without being naked?”

Hilda pants and adjusts her hat as her eyes examine the room. She smooths down her skirt, looks back up at Zelda, harrumphs:

“Is there a reason you’ve brought me...here...instead of your personal boudoir?”

Zelda’s hands still. She clears her throat, says,

“I thought it’s what you wanted.” Hilda’s eyebrows raise in a silent question, and Zelda elucidates, “Quick, sordid.” She pauses. “Forgettable.”

“And is that what you want?” Hilda says.

“What I want has never been of much consequence,” Zelda says.

Hilda harrumphs again, opens the door.

“You ought to learn to talk about things, Zelds. Might do you some good.”

The door closes, and Hilda is gone.

xxx

It’s the present, and Zelda wakes up naked in her own bed—curled around Hilda’s warm, naked body.

She’s dizzy and fuzzy and clings harder trying to chase away her own fragility. Hilda stirs slightly.

“I could use a big, greasy breakfast,” Zelda whispers. Hilda snuggles into her, says sleepily,

“Anything else?”

“And I have a few things I’d like to run by you.”


End file.
